Environmental Pollution and Ecotoxicology in North Carolina

The Service’s Environmental Contaminants Program collects and interprets data to help the public, regulators, and other decision makers. With the removal of Milburnie Dam under consideration, we coordinated an investigation of sediment pollution as technical assistance to interested stakeholders. Our final report demonstrates that concentrations of heavy metals and hydrocarbons in sediments upstream of the dam are less than levels of concern. We also documented that the highest sediment pollutant concentrations were typically from downstream of the dam.

Previous Updates

2010

Responding to Climate Change: Carbon Sequestration Benefits of Drained Peatland Restoration (pdf 476Kb). U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Environmental Contaminants ecologists reduce pollution through prevention and restoration. The agency is being challenged to address climate change, important drivers of which are pollutants such as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. Restoring drained peatlands is a quantifiable approach to sequestering these pollutants, an approach that contaminants ecologists have facilitated in eastern North Carolina.